Flea

After more than 20 years, the queen of Shabby Chic still heads out in the dark of early morning in search of the perfect flea-market finds. "We don't do wheel barrels-into-coffee tables," Rachel Ashwell said, referring to some buyers' penchant to take old stuff and make it into something else. Rather, Ashwell, like many shoppers, chooses for items that are largely ready to roll. But how? Some insights into what makes her say "yes" to a piece — and, more important, what makes her say "no. " Function.

"Woke to find out I'm in a new supergroup," tweets Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea. Meanwhile, longtime fans of the aggressively challenging punk outfit At the Drive-In and the thinky hard rock of Mars Volta woke to the news that principles of both acts, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, are once again collaborating, this time in a new project with Flea. Antemasque is the name of the act, and "4AM" is the act's first single. It's three minutes of heavy, contradictory guitar parts that stop, start and sound alarms. Bixler-Zavala's vocals are always on the verge of a freakout, and Flea's bass is the constant that holds the upper-register riffing and howls together. There aren't too many details on the act for now. Flea downplayed the attention the group was getting, tweeting that he "played on some tracks a few weeks ago with my friends Omar and Cedric for love.

"Gulliver's Travels" star Jack Black has purchased Flea's Los Feliz-area home for $5,965,000, Redfin.com shows. Sitting on a flag-shaped lot of more than half an acre, the two-story 1915 house had been renovated by Flea (a.k.a. bassist Michael Balzary) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who added a Topanga Canyon ambience. The kitchen was infused with a hippy vibe. Seven bedrooms and three bathrooms are included in the home's 6,500 square feet of living space. There is a swimming pool, a large motor court and solar roof panels.

Forget the tree that fell in the forest with no one around to hear it. What if someone took more than 100,000 photographs over decades of shooting and absolutely no one was around to see them? And what if they turned out to be really, really good? That in a nutshell is the stranger-than-fiction tale behind the gripping documentary "Finding Vivian Maier," a film that asks a pair of equally involving questions: Exactly who was this hidden master and how did her work and her life finally come to light?

Question: I live in a flea-infested apartment. I do not own a pet. The fleas come from rodents inside the walls. The property manager will not fix the problem. What can I do? Answer: In California, the law requires that landlords offer and maintain rental housing that is fit and habitable -- and this means free of vermin such as fleas. When the infestation is traceable to the tenant, the tenant pays for the extermination, but if the tenant is not to blame, the landlord pays. Tenants have various options when landlords won't step up. You can complain to your local or state housing or health department.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Michael Balzary, known as Flea, has listed a newly built Malibu house for sale at $4,795,000. Designed by Marmol Radziner, the contemporary indoor-outdoor home has a cement floor and ocean and canyon views. There are three bedrooms, three bathrooms and an office in more than 3,000 square feet. Outdoor amenities on the gated 2.4-acre site include a free-form swimming pool. Flea, 48, is a founding member of the Grammy-winning band, which has released nine studio albums since it formed in 1983 and has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide.

"Woke to find out I'm in a new supergroup," tweets Red Hot Chilli Peppers bassist Flea. Meanwhile, longtime fans of the aggressively challenging punk outfit At the Drive-In and the thinky hard rock of Mars Volta woke to the news that principles of both acts, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala, are once again collaborating, this time in a new project with Flea. Antemasque is the name of the act, and "4AM" is the act's first single. It's three minutes of heavy, contradictory guitar parts that stop, start and sound alarms. Bixler-Zavala's vocals are always on the verge of a freakout, and Flea's bass is the constant that holds the upper-register riffing and howls together. There aren't too many details on the act for now. Flea downplayed the attention the group was getting, tweeting that he "played on some tracks a few weeks ago with my friends Omar and Cedric for love.

UCLA didn't pull off an upset Thursday night over top-ranked Arizona, but at least fans in attendance at Pauley Pavilion got some decent pre-game entertainment. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea performed the national anthem before tipoff, showing off some of the skills that have made him a well-known entity in the rock world for decades. Flea keeps things simple at the start of the Star Spangled Banner before unleashing a grinding blast that seemed to work well at getting fans pumped up for the game.

Tweets of admiration continue to roll in for Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who died Monday at the age of 80. A sampling: Lakers forward Pau Gasol: "Today is a very sad day for all the Lakers and basketball. All my support and condolences to the Buss family. Rest in peace Dr. Buss. " Former Laker Dennis Rodman: "My thoughts and prayers are with the Buss family. Dr. Jerry Buss was like a Dad to me and is a tremendous loss to Lakers fam. " Former Lakers announcer Spero Dedes: "Rest in peace, Dr. Buss.

This post has been corrected. See below for details. Among the pleas and invectives, yowls and barks coming from Patti Smith on stage at the Wiltern on Friday, the bellowed cries of “free money!” “Gloria!” and “Pussy Riot!”; the Sylvia Plath dedication and the yarn about Jimmy Iovine, Bruce Springsteen and the birth of “Because the Night,” the singer, poet, and National Book Award-winning memoirist relayed a sage piece of advice to the crowd. “You don't have to go to school," she said.

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Dhani Harrison, Brendan Benson, Butch Walker and more than a dozen other musicians will take part in Petty Fest 2014 when the benefit event sets down April 3 at the El Rey Theatre for its Los Angeles stop. The show, for which 100% of the proceeds will go to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund to aid musicians in need, also will feature performances of songs each act chooses from across Tom Petty's nearly four-decade recording career by Albert Hammond Jr., Matt Sorum, Lukas Nelson, the Walking Papers, Nikkie Lane, Jason Lee, Ruby Amanfu, Midlake's Eric Pulido, Maroon 5's James Valentine, Ace Harper, Chase Coh, Zane Carney and others.

Foodies and flea market enthusiasts can sharpen their respective skills in this 10-day fall tour that combines lessons at a cooking school with visits to markets in Provence and the flea markets of Paris. The first leg includes seven nights in an 18th century farmhouse in St. Remy-de-Provence, two days of cooking instruction (for beginners or experts) with dinner, a visit to the St. Remy market, tours of several hill towns, including Gordes, Les Baux and Arles, and a trip to the L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue Sunday market.

As our regular readers might recall, Pop & Hiss didn't especially enjoy Red Hot Chili Peppers' appearance Sunday night during the otherwise-delightful Super Bowl halftime show by Bruno Mars. Did our distaste for the band's rendition of "Give It Away" have anything to do with the fact that Flea appeared to be playing a bass that wasn't plugged in, as a number of keen-eyed observers pointed out following the performance? It did not. Before it's a concert, the Super Bowl halftime show is -- like the football game that surrounds it -- a full-tilt TV spectacle, one far more dependent on energy and charisma and visual style than on whether actual instruments are being actually played before our eyes and ears.

A small Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting that a woman said she purchased for just $7 at a flea market will return to a Maryland museum that argued that the painting was stolen from its premises in 1951. A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Friday that Renoir's "Paysage Bords de Seine," which was painted in 1879, is the rightful property of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The decision brought to an ostensible end a bizarre case that pitted a driving teacher against the museum in a battle over an Impressionist work estimated to be worth $22,000.

UCLA didn't pull off an upset Thursday night over top-ranked Arizona, but at least fans in attendance at Pauley Pavilion got some decent pre-game entertainment. Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea performed the national anthem before tipoff, showing off some of the skills that have made him a well-known entity in the rock world for decades. Flea keeps things simple at the start of the Star Spangled Banner before unleashing a grinding blast that seemed to work well at getting fans pumped up for the game.

HOUSTON - The Lakers didn't look like themselves for 21/2 quarters, not necessarily a bad thing right now. They hung with the Houston Rockets, even led by 11 points, until reality checked into the game on James Harden's alley-oop lob to Dwight Howard for a dunk. Yep, him again. Howard and the Rockets rallied to beat the Lakers, 113-99, Wednesday at Toyota Center. Lakers fans won't want to hear it, but Howard wasn't having any of the "What if?" talk, pretending to fall asleep when asked about his former team.

As our regular readers might recall, Pop & Hiss didn't especially enjoy Red Hot Chili Peppers' appearance Sunday night during the otherwise-delightful Super Bowl halftime show by Bruno Mars. Did our distaste for the band's rendition of "Give It Away" have anything to do with the fact that Flea appeared to be playing a bass that wasn't plugged in, as a number of keen-eyed observers pointed out following the performance? It did not. Before it's a concert, the Super Bowl halftime show is -- like the football game that surrounds it -- a full-tilt TV spectacle, one far more dependent on energy and charisma and visual style than on whether actual instruments are being actually played before our eyes and ears.

Humans like to think of themselves as residing at the top of the evolutionary chain, but the tiny water flea beats them out by at least one measure ? the size of its genome. The creature, which lives in freshwater ponds around the world, requires nearly 31,000 genes to complete its genetic blueprint, almost a third more than humans and 50% more than the common housefly, researchers reported last week in the journal Science . That gives Daphnia pulex , only 1 millimeter long, more genes than any creature whose genome has been decoded to date, according to geneticist John Colbourne of Indiana University, who led the team that performed the sequencing.

A small Pierre-Auguste Renoir landscape painting has set off a dispute between a major American art museum and a woman who said she purchased the painting for just $7 at a flea market in 2009. The Baltimore Museum of Art said the Renoir was stolen from its premises in 1951. A court hearing is scheduled for Friday to determine whether the museum or Virginia resident Martha Fuqua is the rightful owner of the painting. Renoir's 1879 painting "Paysage Bords de Seine" depicts a lush, verdant landscape on the banks of the Seine.

Downtown Flea, a new monthly vintage market in Los Angeles, is launching July 28, and for founder Phillip Dane, it's part of a sacred shopping tradition. Flea markets, he said, "are great social places and recession-proof businesses, whatever your budget. " The Downtown Flea will premiere with vintage dealers and Etsy crafters, he said. Among the offerings: midcentury clothing and home decor, handcrafted contemporary furniture, housewares, jewelry, baked goods and Loyal Dean skateboards.